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DIGIT Movers & Shakers: March 2020

David Paul

01 April 2020,
11.44am

Despite the impact of coronavirus on business, there has been much activity in the Scottish digital technology sector throughout March. This edition of Movers and Shakers features Cutitronics, ePOS Hybrid, Iomart and Tesco Bank.

Recruitment

Brightsolid

Brightsolid, the Scottish managed hybrid cloud services company, has appointed Carolanne Lang as Head of Service Delivery as the company continues to grow its service offerings.

This follows Brightsolid’s recent appointment of Jon Gasparini as Chief Technology Officer, who has been executing the new company strategy and solidifying Brightsolid’s hybrid cloud offering in addition to extending the company’s partnership with AWS.

Lang will be responsible for leading the company’s service delivery function, in addition to leading the service desk and engineering teams across Brightsolid’s bases in Dundee and Aberdeen. Lang will also augment Brightsolid’s service management approach, using her expertise in IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices to improve client satisfaction levels.

Lang joins Brightsolid with over 20 years of service delivery experience having previously held leadership positions with Axios Systems, Iomart, AMOR Group and Wood Management Services. While with these organisations, she played a central role in delivering successful global support strategies and driving customer service improvements.

Commenting on her appointment, Lang said: “I’m pleased to join the Brightsolid team in this exciting phase, as the company continues to expand its service offerings to meet the changing needs of its clients.

“I’ve always held Brightsolid in high regard, in large part due to its commitment to providing high quality and reliable services, as well as the calibre of its people being second to none.

“As part of my role at Brightsolid, the team and I will work to ensure we provide our clients with seamless and consistently improving levels of service to ensure they can meet their business goals.”

Jon Gasparini, Brightsolid CTO, added: “We are delighted to have Carolanne on board, as we continue to transform our business and focus on being the hybrid cloud managed services provider of choice for Scotland.

“Carolanne, with her excellent track record, brings a wealth of great services expertise to our business which will only serve to strengthen our managed services offering, creating an even more attractive proposition for many organisations as they progress on their cloud journey.”

Tesco Bank

Tesco Bank has appointed Gary Balmer as its chief information officer. He joins immediately and will report to David Bowerman, chief operations officer.

His appointment follows the retirement of Derek Tucker, who previously held the role.

Based at Tesco Bank’s Edinburgh headquarters, Balmer will be responsible for leading the bank’s 440-strong information technology function.

He brings with him a wealth of experience, having worked previously in various IT leadership roles at New Look, Sainsbury’s, PwC, and IBM.

Bowerman said: “Our focus as a business is developing propositions which better meet the needs of Tesco shoppers, and Gary will play a key role in leading the technology function which supports the delivery of this.”

Iomart

Technology veteran Reece Donovan has been named as the new chief operating officer at Glasgow-based cloud computing firm Iomart.

Donovan has over 23 years’ experience in the technology and telecom industries in the UK and internationally.

He moves from his position as chief executive at Newcastle-based Nomad Digital, which provides IP connectivity and digital solutions to the global transport sector. Donovan’s career has also seen him serve as a senior vice-president for software firm CSG International.

Iomart chief executive Angus MacSween said: “Given the growth of the business and our plans for the future it seems like the right time to strengthen our executive team and we welcome Reece to the company.

“Iomart has grown considerably in the last 20 years, delivering over £100 million in revenue last year, servicing a large number of mainly recurring customers, across a wide variety of sectors, from an extensive network of UK data centres.

“Reece has a strong track record within innovative digital businesses and I look forward to working alongside him, as we look to capitalise on the significant market opportunities ahead.”

AND Digital

Tech enablement specialist AND Digital has appointed Dave Livesey as club executive in charge of its first Scottish office.

He will lead AND Digital’s Edinburgh-based team which has been named ‘Club Somerville’ after Scottish science pioneer Mary Somerville.

Livesey has more than 20 years’ experience in technology and has worked across a diverse range of sectors including financial services and healthcare. In 2009 he founded WaveAdapt in New Zealand which specialised in helping businesses move to cloud computing.

Its success in providing Google Apps for Business in New Zealand led to it being acquired by Google’s largest global enterprise partner Cloud Sherpas. Following the acquisition, Livesey worked with Cloud Sherpas including running its Geospatial division.

Livesey commented: “Having founded my own business in 2009, I have a clear understanding of what it’s like being at the coalface, where slick, efficient digital delivery really matters.

“In my two decades working in tech overall, I have seen first-hand the way that tech and digital are challenging many industries, but how, if done right, it can create outsized competitive advantage.

“A core part of my role at AND Digital will be to grow and nurture the team behind Club Somerville, and to lead on our company-wide vision of helping businesses accelerate their digital abilities by providing fast access to tech talent so that companies can not only ship better products faster but also upskill in-house teams for ongoing success.”

Cloud Technology Solutions

IT group Cloud Technology Solutions (CTS) appointed Tom Ray as chief operating officer in March, who will operate out of the firm’s Edinburgh office.

Ray joins the Manchester-headquartered firm’s 14-strong team in the capital from cloud computing consultancy, Cloudreach, where he worked for nine years and was most recently general manager of Microsoft Azure.

The University of Aberdeen graduate has more than 20 years’ experience implementing digital strategies for businesses.

Commenting on his appointment, Ray said: “The tech industry has always been a high growth sector but with new innovations arriving all the time it’s becoming increasingly fast-moving. It’s important that companies operating in it have the agility and ambition to capitalise on the opportunities this presents. CTS has a history of doing exactly that and has been able to establish itself as a leading business in the market.

“When the opportunity came to join the team in Edinburgh, it was an easy decision. I’m looking forward to working with a fantastic team to help CTS continue to grow sustainably.”

CTS chief executive officer James Doggart said: “Tom has a unique depth and breadth of experience and has successfully proven that he knows how to grow a business in our industry.

“He joins us at an exciting time and will play an invaluable role as we look to bring our expertise in digital transformation to an increasing number of businesses across the UK and Europe.”

ePOS Hybrid

UK food tech startup ePOS Hybrid raised £400,000 as its first funding round came to an end – 60% above its initial goal of £250,000.

The company surpassed its target halfway through the campaign and gained another 89 backers for the final stages of the fundraiser, bringing the total number to 168.

Bhas Kalangi, founder & CEO at ePOS Hybrid, said: “The entire campaign has been an overwhelming success for us. Surpassing our goal by 60% demonstrates the appetite investors have for our business as well as the food tech industry.

“We set out to achieve an ambitious target and we’re thrilled to see such a large pool of investors sharing our vision in transforming the hospitality industry.”

Andrew Gibbon, head of growth at ePOS Hybrid, said: “To have numerous investors from across the globe backing the business demonstrates a level of excitement and potential for our technology in the UK and abroad.

“We’re now in an incredibly strong position to rapidly grow and build upon the success we’ve achieved since our launch in March 2019.

“We’re currently driving towards onboarding 75 new clients per month and we’re forecasting to see this figure almost double in the next 12 months. This investment round will help us hit 2,500 clients by May 2021, generating revenues of over £3.7 million.”

Cutitronics

Leading beauty-tech firm Cutitronics has announced the expansion of its team with four new hires ahead of its global product launch.

The University of Strathclyde spin-out has bolstered its in-house capabilities by recruiting engineers from some of Scotland’s most innovative sectors, including the space industry.

The new team members will fill highly technical roles created to support the company’s growth aspirations and future-proof the technology. They will bring the total headcount of the company since its inception in 2014 to 19.

Daniel Lennon said: “In my previous role in Scotland’s space industry, I worked on satellites that are currently in orbit. It was vital that these small and complex devices were extremely robust and worked first time. No one was available to make repairs in space!

“I want to transfer that same level of precision to my role at Cutitronics, ensuring that this incredibly intelligent technology is extremely user friendly, works faultlessly, and feels well designed.”

The firm has also appointed two temporary contractors to strengthen the development of the technology. Eduardo Goncalves joins as Embedded Software Programmer and Gordon Irvine joins as Supply Chain consultant.

Dr David Heath, co-founder and CEO of Cutitronics, commented: “This is a pivotal time in our development as we continue to break technological barriers every day. Our new team members will play a significant role in shaping our products and top-line user experience.

“We are very proud to have brought together such an impressive team, hailing from a diverse range of backgrounds. Combining these many and varied skillsets has enabled us to develop something the world has never seen before. We believe our work will help to shape the future of the global beauty industry for the better.”

The additional specialists will further refine Cutitronics’ ground-breaking technology, which includes a suite of digital device-led platform technologies, and an accompanying mobile app. The system allows consumers to analyse their skin in real-time and achieve their desired skincare results.

Relocations

7 Elements

2020 is already proving to be a good year for the team at 7 Elements as they continue to grow with the addition of a new office in Leicester.

The company has already had some success, with recent engagements ranging from penetration testing of a business with over 15,000 clients and 30 million users, as well as incident response capability as part of a multi-million-pound cyber breach.

The technical team based out of the new office will be led by Senior Security Consultant, John Moss.

“We have a great technical team working from our new office, a number of which are graduates of the cybersecurity course here at DMU and I am really excited to continue to build local relationships,” Moss said.

CEO David Stubley commented: “As we enter our 10th year, the company continues to grow in strength, with the addition of our managed vulnerability service Clarus and now a permanent team in Leicester to manage the increased demand in England for our security testing and incident response services”.